17 August 2015

When I turn 80, throw me a party. Invite my friends, invite my family. Invite the neighbors from down the street, invite the painter and the real estate agent. Invite my step-daughter, and convince her to fly in from California for the weekend. Invite my secretary and tell the theater director that it's fine to bring the playwright along.

Hire a square dance caller, get a band. Don't be surprised when the fiddle player knows some of the guests. Convince everyone that they really can do the Virginia reel, even if they don't know left from right.

Find a BBQ joint that caters, but make extra salads for the vegetarians and for the people who want something other than baked beans. Put up a tent in the field, and fly bandanna prayer flags all around.

And don't be shy about asking people to help: she loves to bake, and she loves to order people around, and she's a whiz with a tomato salad in the heat of August. And she'll deliver a box of pimiento cheese sandwiches the day before, which you'll need, because you'll have forgotten to eat lunch.

Order me a birthday cake, but don't try and put 80 candles on it. And have some grab and go brownies (for the people who like chocolate) and lemon cake squares (for the ones who prefer something a little lighter). And late at night, after most of the guests have gone home, you'll move all of the candles to one table, and you'll sit there eating the homemade chocolate chip cookies that one of the guests brought, while you kill all the open bottles of wine.

Love love love the image of the recipe card (and the corresponding post about Moky's Black book) becuase honestly a did a double-take when I saw it. "How did Maggie get a recipe from my mother's box?" I guess that was the mode of that generation -- typed on 3X5 cards, probably a vintage Underwood is responsible, filled (alphabetically under food category) in a box.

What a great idea to scan and make a cookbook. I'm going to do this for my brother and sister.

About Me

It's a journal, a scrapbook, a record of my kid's childhood. It's about food, it's about the pleasures of gardening. It's where I wear my heart on my sleeve, play with words and rail at the world. It's where I muse, and where I indulge my inner magpie. I have one irascible child, and not enough time to read.
If you'd like, you can email me at magpiemusing AT gmail DOT com.